Calendar

From:

To:

Events

The invisible hand of family:Diversification in business groups in emerging economies

23 October 2012

Drawing on the literature of institutional embeddedness and diversification, we conceive diversification decisions in business groups in emerging economies as controlling owners' responses to conform to familial norms and pursue family interests. When controlling owners are highly embedded in the family, they will perceive the family welfare as their priority and tend to serve the familial norms such as inheritance, conflict avoidance and nepotism. These familial considerations will motivate controlling owners of business groups to diversify more, and to diversify via a new firm rather than a new division. We test these hypotheses with 92 business groups in Taiwan from 1980 to 2000. Our findings point to the importance of family in the diversification decisions of business groups in emerging economies.

Jane Luis an associate professor in NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. She received her PhD from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario in 2001. Her research centres on international strategy such as FDI location choice, entry mode choice and alliance partner selection.

Jane Lu has published in leading academic journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management and Journal of Business Venturing, among others. She has also co-authored a textbook: International Business: An Asia Pacific Perspective (Pearson).

Time: 5.30pm-7.00pm

Location: Room 310, China Studies Centre, Old Teachers College, The University of Sydney